


Something is ending, something beginning

by tocourtdisaster



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 13:31:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tocourtdisaster/pseuds/tocourtdisaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Molly Hooper turns her back on Mycroft Holmes (and one time she chooses to move toward him instead).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something is ending, something beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/19351.html?thread=115251095#t115251095) on the kink meme, though I've strayed quite a bit from the original idea. The title comes from "Quiet House" by Spock's Beard.

Going to Sherlock's funeral is one of the most surreal experiences in Molly's life, not least because she left Sherlock half an hour ago in her flat, reeking of ammonia and bleach as he attempted to lighten his dark hair to a shade approaching forgettable. His constant texts don't make it any easier for Molly to pretend that he's dead, so she turns off her phone and hopes he doesn't accidentally (or not-so-accidentally) blow up the entire block while she's gone.

The service is a simple graveside ceremony and Molly stands next to Doctor Stamford and Inspector Lestrade and tries not to look too closely at John across the lid of the empty coffin between them while the vicar drones on and on.

(And that was a tricky bit of business that Molly's sure she never wants to learn the details of. She faked the paperwork for Sherlock's death and sent another body in his place, but she knows that body never made it into the coffin because it ended up on her slab again yesterday as an unidentified body dump, nearly all identifying features obliterated. For the sake of plausible deniability [and her sanity] she hasn't brought it up with Sherlock yet, nor will she.)

The funeral is fairly short and for some reason, even though she knows she should go, that Sherlock isn't actually dead and is probably getting up to terrible mischief with the cats, she can't make herself leave, even when Doctor Stamford squeezes her shoulder or when Mrs. Hudson presses a kiss to her cheek and thanks her for coming. She should leave, she _needs_ to leave, before she slips up and risks everyone's lives more than they already are.

"Doctor Hooper," says a vaguely familiar voice at her side and Molly turns to see Sherlock's brother, looking nothing more than somewhat disgruntled to be at his brother's funeral instead of whatever it is he does for a living on a normal Tuesday morning.

_Oh, god,_ Molly thinks somewhat hysterically, hoping her inner panic isn't visible on her face and that if it is, that she can pass it off as grief. She remembers Sherlock's warning of _"Do not engage him at any cost,"_ and wonders if Sherlock will ever speak to her again once he finds out she's mucked everything up.

"Mister Holmes," she manages to stutter out, turning to face him fully. _Keep it short and vague, Mols,_ she thinks, remembering Sherlock's advice about interacting with anyone not in on his secret, _and don't make eye contact._ She's not sure she'll be able to do this; she's always been a hopeless liar and if Sherlock's brother is anything like Sherlock himself, he's far too perceptive for Molly's good. She has a feeling this is all going to end badly. "I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Hmm, yes, thank you," he murmurs politely but absently, like he's not even aware he's doing it, like it's second nature. It's not at all like how Sherlock acts and it puts her even more on her guard than she was just a minute ago. "I wanted to thank you also for the thoroughness of your post mortem report. I imagine that, as a friend of Sherlock's, it was quite a difficult duty for you to perform."

"I--" Molly starts, not at all sure what to say, just that she needs to say _something_ and then get away as soon as humanly possibly. "I knew he would appreciate it if he was still around to be appreciating things," she says and then cringes when her brain catches up to her mouth. "Sorry, that wasn't--"

"Please don't apologize for your frankness, Doctor Hooper," Sherlock's brother interrupts her, for which she's infinitely grateful. She can feel her face burning with embarrassment. She wishes she could remember his name, but it's lost in a fog of panic. "Sherlock himself was never what one would call tactful, and I am certain he appreciated that lack in his associates as well."

Molly's not sure if she's just been insulted or complimented (or both) and she's not sure she really wants to know. _"Do not engage,"_ she hears Sherlock saying again; she needs to get away from this man.

"Um, thank you?" she hazards. This is not the kind of situation she was trained for in medical school. "I'm sorry, but I need to be going now, I have to be at the hospital soon." She turns to leave, but stops when she feels a gentle pressure on her upper arm. She looks down and sees that Sherlock's brother has his hand wrapped loosely around her arm, keeping her from stepping away.

"Doctor Hooper, please wait," he says and Molly can't do this, can't lie to his face, can't fail Sherlock so spectacularly so soon, so she shakes off his brother's hand and says without meeting his eye, "I'm sorry, but I really need to go," and then walks away before he has a chance to grab her again.

She doesn't look back, but she can feel his gaze like crosshairs between her shoulder blades.

\------

Barely six weeks after Molly signs off on Sherlock's death certificate, the man is officially back from the dead through no fault of Molly's, no matter how much time she's spent worrying that she would be the one to accidentally ruin everything.

But no, it's not Molly who slips up and outs Sherlock to the world; it's Sherlock himself who does it and in probably the most dramatic way possible.

It's been eight days since Molly's seen Sherlock, which is the longest she's gone without seeing him since he moved onto her couch after he died and she tries not to worry, but she can't help herself. She's the only one who knows he's alive, so if he manages to get himself killed for real this time, it's not like there's anyone around to let her know.

She decides to go on as normally as possible and hope that Sherlock's body isn't currently decomposing in a skip somewhere, so she makes herself coffee and toast for breakfast and flips on the news and nearly chokes on her first sip of coffee when the first thing she hears is, "--believed to be dead private detective, Sherlock Holmes, was involved in an undercover police operation to infiltrate a terrorist organization led by the late James Moriarty."

Molly can't hear the rest of the story over the buzzing sound in her ears, but she can see Sherlock, his face bruised and bleeding sluggishly, and John standing in front of the sandwich shop next to their flat watching the police lead another man away in handcuffs. Inspector Lestrade is there, too, and it looks like he's shouting at Sherlock, probably for playing dead, not that Molly can blame him in the slightest, and Molly suddenly finds her that her legs aren't strong enough to support her and falls to her kitchen floor, the handle of the cabinet door digging into the back of her head. 

She's not sure how long she sits there, but when she manages to pull herself to her feet, her coffee is stone cold and there are six text messages notifications flashing at her from the screen of her mobile; most of the messages are from Sherlock ( _Won't be needing your couch anymore. - SH_ and _It's ridiculously lumpy anyway. I'll sleep much better in my own bed. -SH_ and _I'm sorry. -SH_ and _Thank you. -SH_ ), one is from John ( _I understand why you did it. You should come around for tea later if you'd like._ ), and one is from a blocked number ( _Please answer your door, Doctor Hooper._ ).

"Weird," Molly says to herself, glancing over at the door. She hasn't been so out of it that she missed the buzzer, has she? She looks back at her phone and sees that the message is time-stamped four minutes ago. The news is still droning on in the background, but they seem to have moved on from Sherlock's return from the dead and on to the state of the economy. 

The sound of the door buzzer is loud and unexpected despite the warning text and Molly shrieks just a little which startles the cats, who hiss before going back to lounging across the back of the couch and ignoring her as usual. 

Molly steps over to the door and presses the intercom and says, "Yes?" Her voice is only a little shaky and she gives herself a mental pat on the back for that.

"I trust you've seen the news," is what comes through the speaker. Molly turns her head to point her right ear at the little grille directly. The voice is familiar, but distorted, and she can't quite tell who it belongs to.

"Who is this?" she asks instead of answering. She's become far too paranoid since Sherlock became her reluctant flatmate. She's not sure she likes it.

"Mycroft Holmes," and, yes, now Molly can hear it. "I believe we have business to discuss, Doctor Hooper. May I come up?"

The last thing Molly needs right now is Sherlock's brother in her flat, deducing who knows what about her from the state of the fern in the window or the cats' litter box in the corner of the kitchen or the neat stack of Sherlock's meagre post-death possessions next to the couch. She's gotten far too much of that sort of behavior from Sherlock lately and she doesn't need to get it from his brother now, too.

"Sorry, no," she says, not feeling the least bit sorry. "I have to get ready for work and I'm already running late."

"Doctor Hooper, you faked a certificate of death for a man who was just proven, rather spectacularly, to still be alive," Mycroft says and Molly's heart drops to her knees. She's going to lose her job. She doesn't want to lose her job. She likes her job. "I believe I can help you, but I'd rather not discuss it from outside."

And Molly knows about Mycroft Holmes's definition of 'help,' knows it's not something she wants anything to do with. She's an adult, she made a decision based on the information she'd had at hand at the time, and she will deal with the consequences on her own. She doesn't need Mycroft Holmes's influence making things any easier for her.

"I'd rather not discuss it at all," she tells him. Her stomach is tied in knots and her hands are shaking a little, but he doesn't need to know about that, does he? God, she hopes he doesn't know about that. "I'm sorry, but I really do need to get ready for work. Have a nice day."

She steps away from the intercom and lets out a shaky breath and ignores the almost continual buzzing from it while she gets herself ready for the day. The buzzing stops while she's wrangling her misbehaving hair into a ponytail, but a phantom buzzing persists in plaguing her brain.

She pours out a few scoops of kibble for the cats and makes sure their water dishes are full before she pulls on her coat and scoops up her bag and keys. After a moment's hesitation, she stuffs Sherlock's things in a reusable shopping bag and slings it over her shoulder on the way out the door. She pointedly ignores the car parked illegally across the street and how it slowly follows her towards the closest Tube station.

She pulls out her phone when she's forced to stop and wait for a traffic light to turn and opens a new text message to Sherlock.

> Your brother is creepy.  
> I'm on my way to work   
> and he's following me  
> in a car.

She hits send and crosses the street as soon as the light turns in her favor. Her phone buzzes in her hand after a minute and she pulls up Sherlock's reply.

> Yes, he can be like that.  
> I'll take care of it.
> 
> -SH

Molly glances over her shoulder to where the car has been keeping pace with her, but it's gone, somehow disappeared into traffic without her noticing. She doesn't at all feel reassured.

\------

By some miracle, Molly does not lose her job, though she does end up spending the entire morning in her boss's office being reprimanded by everyone in a position of authority at Bart's. When she's finally released, it's coming up on one o'clock and she's absolutely starving, since she didn't manage to eat her toast this morning.

She's been given the rest of the day off as some sort of punishment, which she's extremely grateful for since she's sure everyone in the building now knows about the part she played in Sherlock's 'death' and she doesn't want (yet again) to be the subject of the hospital grapevine, at least not where she can see it.

She's looking forward to picking up some Chinese one her way home and putting her pajamas back on and watching trashy telly all afternoon, but there's a black car waiting at the kerb when she steps out of the building and she stops short at the sight of it.

Her phone picks that moment to start vibrating violently in her bag. She digs it out, sees Sherlock's name on the display and answers by saying, "I thought you were going to take care of your creepy brother." She turns her back on the car and re-enters the hospital; she has no desire to hold a conversation with Sherlock where his brother can see her. She knows it's irrational, but she's pretty sure she's allowed to be a little irrational after the morning she's had.

"I spoke with him after I received your text this morning," Sherlock says and he sounds annoyed, hopefully at his brother and not at Molly; he's the one who called her, after all.

"He obviously didn't listen to whatever it is you told him because he's right outside in the same car as this morning," Molly says, trying to keep her voice down. Sounds tend to echo pretty loudly in the corridors and she doesn't need her _entire life_ to become part of the hospital's gossip mill. 

"I'll take care of it," Sherlock tells her again and Molly scoffs.

"I'll believe that when I see it," she mutters under her breath, but loudly enough for Sherlock to hear even over the phone. "Anyway, why did you call? I thought you preferred to text?"

"John wanted me to make sure you received his text this morning and to reiterate the invitation," Sherlock says and though he's trying to sound long-suffering, it's pretty clear to Molly that he's actually pleased to be taking orders from John again. "Also, Mrs. Hudson wanted me to invite you to lunch. She's made a roast in celebration of my return."

"Actually, that sounds lovely," Molly says, her stomach rumbling its own agreement. "Tell John and Mrs. Hudson thank you, would you? I'm leaving the hospital now, so I should be there soon."

"All right," Sherlock says and then there's a click and when Molly checks her phone, she sees that the call's been disconnected. She's almost certain it's a case of Sherlock hanging up on her because he's not even remotely normal rather than a dropped call because her mobile carrier isn't the most reliable. She hopes he's calling his brother right now.

When Molly steps outside again, the car is still there, only this time, Mycroft is standing next to the open back door with his hands in his pockets. Clearly, Sherlock hasn't managed to get a hold of him.

"Doctor Hooper," Mycroft says with a smile. "I believe we have things to discuss. If you'll come with me, we can speak on the way to your flat." He gestures with one hand towards the open car door and Molly is completely astounded by this man's assumption that she'll just go with him now, despite the fact that she's already brushed him off once today.

"I'm sorry, but what gave you the impression that I'll just get into a strange car with you?" Molly asks. She's shaky with nerves, but confident that she's in the right and she feels like she did the first time she stood up to Sherlock's atrocious treatment of her last Christmas. Oddly enough, that night was also the first time she met Mycroft Holmes and she tries not to draw any conclusions from that because there are no conclusions to be drawn from coincidences.

_Oh, shut up already,_ she tells the little voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Sherlock nowadays. 

"I'm simply offering you a ride to your flat," Mycroft says, gesturing to the open door again. "We need not speak, if you'd prefer, though there are many things that we need to discuss very soon."

"I am not getting into your car," Molly tells him, pressing her hands into her pockets; her voice is doing an admirable job of holding up and the last thing she needs is for her shaking hands to betray her nerves. "Besides, I'm not even going home, so you don't need to bother."

"I can just as easily direct my driver to Baker Street," he says with a smirk, like he knows everything about her, but he doesn't. He _can't_. "I've heard wonderful things about Mrs. Hudson's cooking."

"Yes, well, thank you anyway, but I prefer the Tube," Molly says, turning and beginning to walk away. She can almost hear her mother berating her for her lack of manners, but she tries to squash that down. Holmeses apparently don't respond to proper manners, for all that Mycroft acts like he does, so Molly isn't going to waste her time with them anymore.

Molly's gotten less than twenty feet when she hears Mycroft say, "Remarkable," and it sounds almost like he's impressed with something, with _her_. She's tempted to turn around and ask what he means, but she holds herself back and a moment later, she hears a car door open and then shut and when Molly finally dares to glance back over her shoulder, Mycroft's car is gone.

She lets out a shuddering breath, not sure at all anymore if she should be relieved or not that Mycroft is gone.

\------

Molly can't remember the last time she was intimidated by a door (probably because it's never happened to her before), but she finds that she's intimidated by the door to 221 Baker Street. Not so much the door itself, but the people behind the door. Well, one person in particular.

Not that John had seemed angry with her when he texted this morning or when he made Sherlock reiterate his invitation over the phone, but Molly knows that John Watson is a man of hidden depths and she doesn't want at all to get on his bad side, but she has a feeling she's already earned herself a place there when she helped Sherlock fake his own death. 

She can't stay out here forever, though, if for no other reason than the fact that she can practically feel Mycroft's eyes on her via his CCTV cameras and that isn't a feeling she particularly enjoys, so she turns her back to the street and rings the bell and tries not to fidget too badly with the strap on her bag while she waits. 

She can hear the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs inside and even before the door opens she knows it'll be John on the either side; the stride down the stairs is too heavy for Mrs. Hudson and too slow for Sherlock and Molly really needs to stop thinking like Sherlock now that he's back where he belongs. 

Molly isn't sure what she's expecting from John when he opens the door, but she definitely knows she's not expecting John to pull her into a bone-crushing hug right on the front stoop. 

John isn't much taller than Molly, but when his voice cracks when he says, "Thank you," Molly ducks her head and buries her face in his shoulder. She fists her hands in the back of his jumper and just holds on while John's breath shudders in his chest. She has no idea what she's going to do if he actually starts to cry. 

(She ignores the fact that she can feel tears leaking past her tightly shut eyelids; the overflow of her emotions isn't important right now.)

"John, dear--oh," Molly hears Mrs. Hudson say but she doesn't lift her head from John's shoulder. She's not sure she can. "You two come on upstairs when you're ready. There's tea and brandy if you need it."

And then they're alone again and Molly can feel John breathing, too fast and shallow to really be healthy for long. 

"I'm sorry," she says into his jumper. "I didn't want to lie to you, but he said it was the only way to keep you safe. I'm so sorry."

John pulls away just far enough to grasp her shoulders gently. There are tears clinging to his eyelashes, but his cheeks are dry. "He said you kept him from getting lost in his own head too often and I know he never would've come off that roof alive if not for you. You have nothing to apologize for."

Molly wants to keep apologizing, wants to somehow make amends for John's weeks of mourning, but she's brought up short by the look on John's face, a little sad and a little angry (though obviously not at her, thank god) and incredibly happy all at the same time. Molly tries to smile, feels it wobble precariously, and finds herself wrapped up in John's arms again.

There's the sound of feet on the stairs and Sherlock saying, "Oh, for god's sake," and Molly lifts her head from John's shoulder to see Sherlock standing on the bottom stair, hands on his hips and trying (and failing) to look disapproving. "There's no need for tears, Molly."

He looks even worse than he did on the telly this morning. One of his eyes is bruised and swollen and he's much too thin and it's clear by the way he's standing that his ribs are bothering him, but he's alive and it's more than Molly could have hoped for yesterday.

Sherlock lets out a little _oomph_ of surprise when Molly wraps her arms around his chest and squeezes him tight; he's still standing on the bottom step, making him tower over her even more than usual, but it's okay because now he can't get enough leverage to pry her away and she just needs to hold him, just for a minute, to convince herself that everything is really all right now.

And then she punches him on the arm.

"What was that for?" he asks, and he looks surprised and a little hurt, especially when John snorts out a laugh from the still-open door.

"You couldn't have called to let me know you were alive?" Molly asks. "I was worried! I about had a nervous breakdown when you showed up on the news this morning, I was so relieved."

"I apologize," he says, rather stiffly as if apologies don't cross his lips often, if ever, which doesn't surprise Molly in the least. "But as you can see, I'm perfectly fine."

"That's debatable," John interjects and Sherlock makes a face at the correction, but doesn't object to it otherwise and Molly absolutely cannot stop smiling. 

"Lunch is getting cold, dears!" Mrs. Hudson calls out from upstairs and Molly smiles hard enough that her cheeks ache when Sherlock steps aside and gestures her up the stairs first. The door shuts solidly behind John and Molly lets Sherlock guide her up the stairs and into the kitchen where Mrs. Hudson presses a mug of tea into her hands and she finally lets herself relax.

\------

Things go back to something approaching normal after that. Molly goes to work (though her boss tends to drop in more often than is strictly necessary) and she spends evenings at home with the cats and she occasionally gets lunch with John when they've both got time. Sherlock still swans into the morgue like he owns it and makes outrageous demands that Molly delights in denying him (though she gives in far too often than she should, but it's progress that she recognizes that, right?).

Things aren't all normal, though. Molly gets requested as lead pathologist for more and more government investigations as the less interesting autopsies go to her colleagues. A packet of papers arrives in the post with information about her updated security clearances, though it's a shock to Molly that she even _has_ security clearances. She notices black town cars everywhere she goes.

She brings it up with Sherlock one day when he's bent over a microscope in his favorite lab at Bart's. Molly's across from him, working on the report for yet another government requested autopsy. Sherlock glances up at her through his fringe, but doesn't bother moving away from the microscope. "He's trying to woo you, I suppose," he says after a long minute of silence, his concentration already back on his slides.

"What?" Molly sets her pen down neatly on the bench and stares at the top of Sherlock's head. His hair is finally starting to grow back in from when he'd cut nearly all of it off to get rid of the blond she'd finally gotten used to seeing him with. She wonders if his hair is really as soft as it looks.

"Mycroft," Sherlock says. He looks up briefly from the microscope to scribble in the notebook at his side. "He finds you fascinating for whatever reason and he's doing you favors in an attempt to win your affections. I expect he'll attempt to get you on government payroll next."

"What? Me, work for the government?" Molly asks, her tone heavy with skepticism. Sherlock quirks an eyebrow at her, then darts his eyes to the papers spread out on the bench. Molly glances down at the report in front of her, sees the 'Classified' stamp on the top of each page, realizes that working directly for the government wouldn't really be all that different from what she's doing now, and sighs in defeat. "So he's trying to woo me? Can't he just ask me out for coffee like a normal human being?"

"My brother may as well be the British government and you think he'd actually ask you out for _coffee_?" Sherlock asks, and, yes okay, it's a bit ridiculous when Molly gives it a second thought.

"But why me?" she asks. "I'm nothing special."

Sherlock finally straightens up from the microscope and his gaze is as piercing as it always is when something has his complete attention. Molly's only experienced it once before, and it's just as electrifying now as it was the day she helped him fake his death.

"You live frugally because you've been helping to support your mother and younger sister since your father's death two years ago," Sherlock says and Molly hadn't even realized he knew about any of that, but he did live in her flat for five weeks, more than long enough for him to have learned everything about her. "Despite being the primary breadwinner for your family, you put everything on the line to help me when I asked you. You didn't let Mycroft bully you into accepting his 'help' and you haven't been overtly overwhelmed by his sphere of influence. You, Molly Hooper, are a good person and if I were so inclined, I might be jealous of my brother."

Molly's brain is whirling and she doesn't know how to respond, so she says the first thing that pops into her head. "I hope you say nice things like that to John, too." Because John is a better person than Molly could ever hope to be and he deserves to hear it from the one person in the world it would mean everything coming from.

Sherlock's ears turn an endearing shade of pink as he busies himself at the microscope again. "I rather think that's beside the point, don't you?" he says and it makes Molly smile to see him be the flustered one for once.

"It's all so weird, though," Molly says after a moment spent staring blindly at her paperwork. "How was I supposed to know he's interested in me if this is all I have to go on? I mean, making sure I have interesting work to do doesn't exactly scream 'I fancy you.' And even if I did figure it out and even if I wanted to let him know that the feeling was mutual, it's not like I could let him know. I mean, every time he's contacted me, it either been in person or from a blocked number."

Molly's rambling is brought to a halt by Sherlock ripping a piece of paper from his notebook and thrusting it in her face. She takes it out of self preservation; she doesn't exactly fancy a papercut nose. It takes her longer than she'd like to admit before she makes sense of the numbers written on it.

"Is this what I think it is?" she asks, inwardly cursing herself for sounding so tentative.

Sherlock is up and has his scarf looped around his neck and his coat settled onto his shoulders and is halfway to the door, notebook in hand and microscope slides left all over the bench, before he says, "Mycroft abhors texting, so you'd do best to call him." And then he's gone, the door swinging shut behind him with a quiet _snick_.

Molly stares after him and then back to the paper in her hands. If Mycroft is anything like Sherlock (and he must be, at least a little bit, deep down), then calling him will start something that won't be easily stopped and Molly isn't sure she's quite ready for that. Then again, she hadn't thought she was ready to help Sherlock save the world and look how that turned out.

She gathers up her report and shoves it all back into its folder before making her way to the desk and dialling for an outgoing line. She shoves down the panic that starts to rise when the line rings, takes a deep breath when she hears the call connect.

"What can I do for you, Doctor Hooper?" Mycroft asks smoothly, but if Molly isn't mistaken, he sounds the faintest bit surprised, too.

"Would you like to get coffee sometime?" she asks in return. Her stomach does a backflip in the time it takes Mycroft to answer.

"Yes, I rather think I would."

Molly sinks down into the chair behind the desk, smiles wide enough that her cheeks hurt, and says, "Wonderful."

And it is.


End file.
